“but there’s nothing i can do, it doesn’t make a difference”

1. it does not feel enough to call or donate money
2. and I only have a little to give
3. but I have been asking myself what can I do what can I do
4. and so many have shrugged in pain and said nothing, nothing, it doesn’t make a difference and I call
5. my legislator but he does nothing, so I dance in anger and wonder
6. why bother why bother why bother
7. if I’m just
8. screaming into a void and i should have
9. paid attention sooner and this is what it takes
10. for you to care?
11. but this is what so many count on—
12. the exhaustion, the fatigue, the long haul
13. that banality of evil
14. so I have been thinking that
15. it does make a difference if I am
16. a person paying attention
17. who calls
18. even if I call and my legislator does nothing, I still called
19. and can keep calling
20. and even if it doesn’t change any policy
21. I can still vote
22. and even if I can only vote once every two years
23. and the legislator doesn’t get voted out
24. it is still something,
25. a ritual to resist
26. the exhaustion, the fatigue
27. to keep moving.
28. I know this from swimming, from dancing, from grief to not let
29. emotion go stagnant.
30. and even still, I can read
31. which will mean
32. a person is paying attention
33. and I have time
34. to be informed
35. and this is something.
36. and I have time
37. to write
38. and this is something.
39. and perhaps it is enough that
40. my doing something is an act against not doing something
41. an action against the exhaustion, the fatigue, the hopelessness.
42. doing something is
43. doing something.
44. even if it is just engaging with my own ignorance
45. and taking the time to educate myself
46. on my own complicity in unjust systems and maybe
47. doing something is not about changing minds
48. because I resist the idea of being a missionary
49. I am not in the business of changing minds
50. I don’t need to change minds
51. actually I cannot change minds.
52. and maybe I should not be thinking that an action is not making a difference just because a legislator does not care or that I did not change anyone’s mind
53. but rather
54. how has this action altered my subconscious because I believe
55. we are all connected.
56. but still I see the news and I think it is
57. not enough not enough not enough but
58. what can I do what can I do what can I do
59. and I want to shut it off but those
60. screaming children cannot shut it off
61. and I wonder
62. is there something to be gained by letting myself feel this pain and grief?
63. —yes:
64. empathy
65. in an age where it is easier to harden, to shrug “they are right there is nothing I can do, nothing I do makes a difference”
66. is it an act of resistance to stay soft?
67. to repeat to repeat to repeat
68. even as so many say
69. it does nothing it does nothing it does nothing!
70. but—
71. to resist the hardness and the apathy
72. is to
73. do something.
74. yes, it is
75. doing something.
76. I have to believe that even if my calls do not
77. make a difference to my legislator,
78. they make a difference in my own
79. subconscious.
80. that somehow
81. it does something in my body,
82. if only to resist the
83. exhaustion, the fatigue of nothingness.
84. and perhaps even that somehow
85. it does something in our body,
86. our collective subconscious,
87. building an allergic reaction, a massive
88. intolerance of injustice, when we stay
89. sensitive,
90. soft, when we just keep doing
91. something.
92. I do not know for sure but
93. it is doing something
94. in my being, in my
95. soul, in my
96. body.
97. yes,
98. it is
99. doing something.

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imperfect thoughts, so much more i wish i could say

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